Cher Paris,

 

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since May. Yes, that midnight spring walk in the drizzle means a lot to me. Only me, only with you. Modigliani would understand.

 

To you, I might be just another foreign girl passing through your streets, shamelessly taking selfies while irresponsibly drinking Bordeaux in your cafés, smiling and happy and amazed by everything you have to offer, knowing exactly how to use you and then leave you and leave a shining review and move on and maybe come back next year. Unfortunately, I’m not one of them.

I came back only ten days later, truly not knowing what to do. Were you surprised? All I knew was I needed to see you again, to make sure that the sentiment that has been preventing me from moving on was legitimate, and real; that it was not just a blurred perception of things because I didn’t change my playlist straight away after leaving you or because my life has been so comfortable back home that it puts too much pressure on my creativity.

 

Well, Paris, it was legitimate, and real, and it still is, and it’s scary to carry it around all the time. I nonchalantly wear black, with the occasional colours, and wear the combination of harmlessly flirtatious and acutely romantic attitude that sometimes I feel like a dangerous walking dead who needs to be shot in the brain because my passionate dreams might fatally injure whomever I bump into. And I didn’t choose you: you were chosen for me.

 

Whenever I’m alone with you, problems seem to be left alone. I have no doubt that I can handle you, however dangerous my dreams and sentiments might be, with care. You seem to accept me just the way I am – my unbearable lightness of being, my casually heavy thoughts. I know my high heels might make you doubt me as I walk down your streets and metro stations, my heavy Fendi Peekaboo might make you and your tables tired of me and when I miss the sight of the water under the bridge I walk on, you might grow unsure of me. But, Paris, even when I don’t look at you I am constantly absorbing you. I am gradually building a space in me to contain you, that even when I miss the green light to cross the road I will not miss a single drop of your soul that you unconsciously pour out to me.

 

And so I accept you just the way you are – your newly broken walls, not fully renovated, your secret wounds, your direct ways of saying things, your confusing ways of conveying meanings, your hot and, especially, your cold. I embrace it all, time and again. And whenever we’re apart, the joy lingers on that sometimes it feels almost wrong to be here while my mind is already there, not to steal your air, but to hold out a space for you.

 

You appear in my head, as I drive and when I run, when I lie in bed and as I take a shower. You come out of me, in writing and in my gaze. Even when I’m walking across London I’m a dedicated (faux) Parisian, and you just keep coming on to me, reminding me of where I should be. I would have poached eggs on toast in Marylebone and they would play Biolay. I would meet a friend in Chelsea and she would wear something she bought from Paris – okay that happens all the time, but, seriously, my friends and I would be dressed in Gucci in Mayfair and the limo driver would still ask if we were with Dior (whoever said “no” that day, I’ve forgiven you). My girlfriend and I would go to a Brazilian restaurant in Bricklane and it would be a gorgeous Parisian guy (originally from Rio – you get the idea) starting a conversation from across the table, in French – about coxinha, not hot samba movements. Still, it’s a sign: to me everything screams “Paris!” Brazilian muscles have nothing on my crush on you.

 

Truly, distance makes the hearts grow weary. That’s why, even though I’ve already had things – a flat in the 5th and an autumn course at La Sorbonne – in place for September, I felt the need to visit you one more time. As always, I moved mountains to make it happen, compromising my responsibilities. But, as always, it was worth it.

 

I saw the part of La Sorbonne where I will do my course. I got the chance to get to know you, and you got the chance to get to know me better: I could strut in La Coupole to enjoy champagne and oysters and a few drops of Pesac-Léognan and can as gracefully chew minced-aubergine crêpe and a couple of glasses of chouchen at La Crêperie de Josselin, which doesn’t take credit cards. I could certainly walk a long walk, even jump over fences if needs be – my friends know I adore trespassing, in heels.

 

The next day, your charmant weather made me walk from the hotel to the area where my flat was, past the lovely buildings and the smell of piss on the pavements, past le Jardin de Luxembourg and insignificant places to eat. Although it was so hot that the walk almost felt like a punishment, it was an experience I wouldn’t trade even for the most soothing rain.

 

When we got to Notre-Dame, I know, Paris, it’s everything you detest: overpriced restaurants with bad food and the overflow of tourists, attitude as bad as the food. You might think I was everything you detest too, but you must understand I can’t live away from home and not being surrounded by people – homesick and quiet surroundings are a perfect combination for suicide, even for a poet. You know my heart is in Montparnasse, sitting by Serge Gainsbourg’s grave, but I can’t just live exactly where my heart is – my heart needs the balance, and the occasional walk.

 

It was full of people, always is, and I could see my window shutters from the church gate right opposite the flat building.

 

“That’s my flat!” I shouted.

 

Did that shock you? Your face maintained the je ne sais quoi flair, but I am never an insensitive observer. Did that shock me? My heart suddenly sank. I was suffocated. “That’s my flat!” quickly turned into “What am I doing?”

 

How can I do this? How can I possibly commit to you, Paris, while I have already committed to a home in England? A loving man – certain pains just never go away but we’ve been through hell together and he looks after and treats me like, in his own word, a diva. I will chronically miss him as I miss my early morning tea and the best English food that he makes. Two beautiful and interesting angels – my little girl is as bad as me, only cleverer, but she’s the kind I want to wear everyday like a cool (Saint Laurent) leather jacket (from the men’s permanent collection) that makes me feel good and badass at the same time, in any weather; my cool teenage son is too understanding for his age, we’ve always been best buddies and I will miss the sight of him chatting with his senior girlfriend in his new secondary school this autumn, I will miss his genuine face as he asks me if I’m okay whenever I’m not.

 

That day my heart sank and now you know why. I understand that you, too, have many others to share your wits with and to get to know and entertain, that you cannot promise to give your all to me or always ease my loneliness, but it is not possible that you’re afraid of committing to me when I am the one who cannot commit to you.

 

And there are what ifs, all the negatives. But even so, even when something exploded inside Gare du Nord that afternoon, even when all the lights are red and every road says ‘interdit’, I will not back off. I can’t. The sentiment I have for you might be complicated, but the way it emerges and grows inside me is organic, purer than the glacial river where the best fish come from. It’s got to be healthy, and however temporary this is going to be, if you allow me, I will only take a little and make it big, like a pile of poems in my drawer or a debut novel. I will give too, usually more than I take, and you’ll be glad you’ve been a part of me.

 

And while the unknown is always unsettling, I believe one shouldn’t shy away from things one shouldn’t fear.

 

 

je t’embrasse,

d.o., le 22 juillet 2016

 

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